[partoa]

I'm not an american, I have to say that I'm surprised that paying taxes is being punished over there. In that case, the poor/middle-class over there are taking quite a punishment; if I'm to listen to Warren Buffet ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ec... ).

Elizabeth Warren's point is simple, if you don't want to pay taxes, then don't expect any of the services that are paid for by those taxes. Plain and simple, otherwise you end up with a society that has extremely sharp inequalities and then you will really know what "class warfare" is. I think the point here is simple, buy your nice house and drive your nice car et al, but please save a little for the next guy.

[mseebach]

The problem is in the definitions of "a little" and "the next guy". When "a little" turns out to be several thousands of dollars per person (when divided evenly, which it's not in a progressive tax system) and "the next guy" is every flunkie who took out a mortgage he couldn't afford, Solyndra and, indeed Wall Street firms -- then it's, if not extreme or class warfare, then intellectually dishonest to talk about raising taxes as if it's for roads, education and police.

[partoa]

"a little" here should be relative, if I have a billion, a few hundred million is a little.

The "next guy" here implies anyone who needs it more than you. Be it that inner city school child, or old man with cancer who has to rob a bank in order to get treatment ( http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/man-robs-bank-medical-ca... ) or even the next entrepreneur who will need roads, educated workers and security in order to build his business.

On a different note, I must say that I blame more the system that made it possible to give people mortgages who can't pay. Even more, I blame a system that demolishes houses ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124148169574985359.html ) instead of pricing them better. As a bonus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_lending

[mseebach]

> The "next guy" here implies anyone who needs it more than you.

Yes, but you only need open a single newspaper to learn that inner city children and old men with cancer are NOT the recipients of the money you're being asked to fork over. So framing tax increases in terms of those worthy causes is essentially fraud.

> On a different note, I must say that I blame more the system that made it possible to give people mortgages who can't pay.

Sure. But it's the exact same system that asks for your tax money to clean up its mess.

[kamaal]

I think budgets exist to solve that problem. When money comes from the people, it must go back to the people. But its seldom done that way.

In case of the US it went too over board. With tax payers money being used to supposedly bail out large corporation and banks. Instead that money went into paying Jets, paying bonuses and insane severance packages to executives.

[partoa]

>Sure. But it's the exact same system that asks for your tax money to clean up its mess.

This makes the system even worse! It's like a cancer, and if you look closely, the people who benefited the most are the ones who created the mess. Not, what I'd call, biggest victims who lost their jobs because of the mess and ended up not affording what they could afford before. I'm not sure the mess was cleaned up either, I think it was whitewashed.

On the issue of where taxes go, instead of the rich refusing to be taxed to fund wars and give bailouts, why not insist on policy change and frugality to ensure that taxes are utilized properly and efficiently. Much as it will never be perfect, it can be close to perfect if with the same vigor that people fight taxes, they would fight for better utilization of the taxes.

[Gfranc]

I agree. I always hear proponents talk as if roads, police, education and utilities were a large part of the budget, when that is demonstrably untrue. It's an easy target for people that refuse to make tough decisions on the real spending problems.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/30-yea...